May 31, 2014

For decades I have had flashbacks about being chastised in public. Yes, words can wound in ways sticks and stones do not. Healing has been slow.

The words of her teacher Eva Malikova at Harlem High School for Math and Science seemed to precipitate the alleged suicide of Omotayo Adeoye. She was 17. Malikova observed her using her smartphone to cheat on a German test and ripped into her. Witnesses confirm the intensity of the public reprimand.

Adeoye, who can't swim, jumped into the river. After bobbing a bit, she went under. Here is the coverage in the New York Post.

Yes, adolescents are very sensitive. Malikova should have had Psychology 101 to brief her on how that protected class mandates special handling until age 25. It's then, science confirms, that their brains mature to adult functioning.

However, all human beings are wired to discern threats in the external environment. Whether they be a crazy waving a knife or a sharp-tongued authority figure we usually suffer initial shock. Then perhaps deep trauma.

A 21st century new version of potentially killing words is the posting frequently taking place on Facebook. I am years from healing from the unsolicited advice supposed school chums from Seton Hill University (Greensburg, Pennsylvania) Class of 1967 provided me. Here is that saga. Of course, Adeoye's family should consider suing the New York Board of Education. I ruled that out in dealing with the advice-givers, at least for now. As a legal writer I recognize I have two years after the perceived harm to take legal action. Because the situation involves Facebook, lawyers are interested in it.

Talk, like guns and alcohol, should be highly regulated. Freedom of expression does not extend to the ability to harm in irreversible ways or even kill.

It's the conservative media, ranging from The Wall Street Journal to the Drudge Report, which have been creating the Great Overexposed Hillary Clinton. Here is an example of the WSJ "examining" her record as Secretary of State (sub. req.)

The effort is brilliant Machiavellianism. This politico hasn't even declared herself as a candidate for president for 2016. And Americans still have to get through the 2014 elections, with all the upsets those can trigger.

Yet, she is being overexposed in the influential conservative media. Some of us who have been supportive of her over the years are coming to long for a fresh face. Female or male. And, yes, putting her under such an intense microscope has given prominence to every wrinkle. The woman looks, yes, old.

A fresh face could steal the show. Democrats and independents like myself could get out our pom-poms and cheer the new presence in the presidential race.

The newbie on the scene would have to avoid peaking in the media too fast. If that performance art, including considerable restraint, is done right that player could become president. Hillary would be done.

May 30, 2014

Ghostwriters in demand know one thing: Their definition of "success" and that of their clients might be worlds apart. And the client's definition is all that matters. However, the trick is to figure out what that definition is.

The book "Succeed On Your Own Terms" shows that there are an infinite number of ways to understand success. For some it could be as concrete and measurable a getting to the peak of the mountain. For others it could be following a talent.

For one of my former clients it was about "showing them" that he could dominate the conversation in the media. Therefore, job number-one was to have tons of his opinion-editorials and articles published in brandname publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. That got accomplished. Of course, chasing that kind of goal never brings satisfaction. He might have "shown them" but whatever wounds they had supposedly inflicted on him never healed.

As ghostwriters we don't play amateur shrinks. To give our all to a mission we might not believe in we have to have a come to jesus meeting with ourselves. We have to put our head around what success means to us.

That can change. For years for me it was sort of a version of Let's Praise Famous Men. I wanted to be the ghostwriter for the big guns, both male and female. Now success means having access to stimulating assignments which pay well enough. The woman campaigning to be local dog catcher could be the source of some of them.

What cured me of the big name syndrome? One Let's Praise Famous Men will probably be going to prison for a while. The feds seized his and his partner's assets for alleged fraud - mobile cramming.

Since he was a Millennial I thought I had really made it. Famous and young. I felt hot.

Post that trauma, if the experience is heady it's probably not for me.

Beefy like Dr. Phil, this counselor also put out there the celebrity fixer's bluntness, brashness and seeming bravado.

I observed him working the group here in Arizona. My question is a business one: How well is that persona playing here outside of hipster locations where Dr. Phil is iconic? Not credentialed in psychology, I have no way of measuring his success in helping his patients change their thought processes and behavior.

My hunch is that if he is consciously mirroring Dr. Phil, he will wind up limiting his success.

Dr. Phil clones are not alone. Constantly I bump into youth who present themelves as the next Mark Zuckerberg. Because they take on that iconoclastic persona they seem to assume they can ignore conventional business practices. For example, they apply for full time and contract jobs in extreme casual, talking hipster and not listening to the interviewer. Their parents worry about their sustained unemployment. They don't.

For my generation of Baby Boomers, it was the Steve Jobs persona. What those channeling Jobs didn't understand is that Jobs learned how to become a shrewd Organization Man. After he was forced out of Apple, he grew up. Had he remained the never coloring within the lines Jobs he probably couldn't have pulled it together to move beyond the Mac.

It's a struggle to figure out the professional persona which brings in business. The challenge is intensified because as the marketplace keeps changing so must that persona. The only constant in that is this: It must be authentic. It can't be grafted on in bits and pieces from celebrity culture.

"Father, forgive me. I am just so damn good at public relations. Poor Arthur ...."

Jill Abramson might be more gifted in impression management that she is in managing people. Could be that her Next might be to head up a major public relations agency in Manhattan.

At Wake Forest Commencement she piled on inspirational words about the importance of resilience. She threw in a joke about checking with the career counselors there about her unemployed state. My hunch is that that her address at Wake Forest will become as iconic as Steve Jobs' at Stanford.

For her latest move she has done a 180. She has chosen silence. When the team from Page Six at the New York Post asked her about her employment situation she gave no answer. Nada. That, of course, received prominent placement on the Post's web site. Here you can read it.

Perhaps since she doesn't have to go into the office she might be reading more. She could have picked up the biography of Henry Ford. His meme was: Never complain, never explain.

Abramson can maintain the silence. Or she can execute another move. Meanwhile her nemesis Arthur appears so not in control.

May 28, 2014

Okay, let's first put this in context. When Dylan Byers said on Politico that blogs were dead, he was focusing on Andrew Sullivan's blog "Dish." Byers opined that Sullivan wasn't driving the conversation in Washington D.C. Here is Byers' deconstruction of the supposed waning of Sullivan's influence from when he was with The Atlantic until he launched his own blog.

Maybe that's accurate about Sullivan. Maybe it isn't.

But blogging remains a growing medium as a marketing tool. Check the websites of organizations, large and small, and there is a slot for a blog. In the Darwinian field of selling legal services, there are about 3,500 blogs. On just about every help-wanted bulletin board there are ads for contract bloggers.

Those of us hustling in the trenches to peddle our services aren't focused on driving any conversation. Instead our objectives are to provide useful information and insight to prospects and current clients; show (not tell) how on top of our field we are; be highly visible on search engines; and introduce ourselves as unique human beings to the marketplace.

My three blogs (the other two are here and here) remain a key marketing tactic, both directly and indirectly. Directly, business usually comes in when people who need executive communications services have been following this blog for a while. Indirectly, it develops new business when I include the domain name in my customized pitch letters to public relations agencies, trade associations and corporations.

Not having a blog has become a competitive disadvantage. Prospects might conclude those without them don't care enough to invest in that aspect of the selling process.

"China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging service in a month-long campaign to crack down on rumour mongering ...." - AP, as published in Financial Times, May 28, 2014. Here you can read that coverage (sub. req.)

Those in America and around the world bullish on freedom of expression continue to be outraged by China's national policies. In the U.S., thanks to our Constitution, there is a deep belief in the right to speak freely, as long as the content is accurate.

That belief system is noble. However the pragmatic reality is that from the cradle throughout our careers to building a support system when we are in the nursing home it is shrewd to weigh our words. "Don't say that in public." That's early socialization from Mom. On the job our mentor or manager will firmly inform us or move right into punishing us for "saying something inappropriate." That could be that the competitor's product is superior. When we become dependent on caretakers it is in our survival self interest to build rapport. We screen out hostile comments about how dinner is served too early.

Sure, in America we are supposedly free to say, write and graphically depict what we want. But that mindset often leads straight to isolation. And that leads to restricted opportunities. After all, access to the goodies in life comes through people.

Those hell-bent on freedom of expression often become known as having a sharp tongue (we run like hell away from that) or a loose cannon (because they have no credibility they aren't useful to us.)

The Chinese will have to figure out how to frame rights, including so-called freedom of expression.

Big name commentators like media expert Ken Auletta are still publishing major articles on the firing of Jill Abramson at The New York Times. That soap opera will remain compelling for centuries. We will never ever be able to get enough.

Auletta's most recent piece mentions that Abramson refused to sign a non-disparagement agreement on the way out the door. Here you can read it (that juicy tidbit is in the next to last paragraph.)

Unlike traditional soaps, even prime time ones like "The Good Wife," this one has nothing to do with a love affair. It is completely second decade 21st Leaning In century. It's about a woman who believes in herself who was fired from a high profile job.

She does not follow the model of Carly Fiorina who was gracious about getting the boot at H-P in 2005. (Maybe Fiorina signed one of those non-disparagement clauses.) In fact, she seems to be the Nasty Girl type. And we're finding out that Nasty Girls, sure they may get fired, keep moving on to other fascinating games. The rumor is that Bloomberg is interested in hiring Abramson. So, a meme developing in the soap is the issue of how dumb it is to be a Nice Girl. That can rock every world's woman's conference forever.

Also, the gal is full of surprises. There will be plenty of cliff hangers, just as in the conventional soap plotting. In contrast, the Boys with ink in their veins at The Times are so predictable.

Best of all, there are no words from the sponsor. This show is self-funded, crowdsourced by all the gawkers who wonder if they themselves will be able to get into this grand mess sometime in the professional journey. Or is Abramson in unique space?

May 27, 2014

Admit it. We in Executive Communications mirror athletes. Some days we just don't got it.

And other days, effortlessly our performance is inspired. In these competitive times, the peak performance I have come to most value is in the sales process. Unless I close sales, there will be no books, speeches, opinion-editorials and blog posts to ghostwrite. When we deliver inspired pitches, in text, on the phone and in person we usually land those plum jobs and assignments.

Most of time, we can't predict those random acts of inspired selling. But we always know when we are in them. How can we max their impacts? Here are four tips.

Trust ourselves. We are in a field force we can't understand. But while in it our decisions and actions will be on the money.

Stay connected to prospect. It's too easy to float into the ether of transcendence. One way to remain aligned with prospect is to continue to ask questions.

Do a trial close. At that point we have led the prospect through several doors. Stop. Tell the prospect you want the sale and what will it take to get it. Stop. The odds are the prospect will then speak. Listen.

Cross sell. By introducing other services we take the prospect into a deep dive of our expertise. That can dazzle.

If we are taking full advantage of those random acts of inspired pitching then we should have more than enough work. We don't have to be in angst when that next vortex of whatever will overtake us - and the prospect.